8th Grade Book Recommendations

What’s new? What’s interesting?

Romance

Twilight - Headstrong, sun-loving, 17-year-old Bella declines her mom's invitation to move to Florida, and instead reluctantly opts to move to her dad's cabin. She becomes intrigued with Edward Cullen, a distant, stylish, and disarmingly handsome senior, who is also a vampire. When he reveals that his specific clan hunts wildlife instead of humans, Bella deduces that she is safe from his blood-sucking instincts and therefore free to fall hopelessly in love with him.

24 Girls in 7 Days - When the love of his life rejects his invitation to the senior prom, Jack Grammar's so-called best friends pose as Jack and run a personal ad in the online school newspaper soliciting a date. At first, the teen is not amused, but he agrees to go along with the plan because his friends have a list of girls eager to go out with him. In fact, it is hard to avoid the young ladies who descend on him without warning. The result is a hilarious adventure as Jack tries to speed-date 24 girls in 7 days.

Desperation

How to Steal a Dog - One day Georgina has a home, a best friend, and plenty to eat. The next, she's living in a car with her mother and brother. Carrying on as usual isn't possible: washing up in a restaurant bathroom, doing homework by flashlight, losing her friend. Mom works two jobs, but it's not enough, so impatient Georgina decides to steal a dog, hoping to collect a reward.

Runaway - Running away again from an abusive foster family, Holly makes her way by stealth and cunning to Los Angeles. She

writes poetry in her journal, too--vivid and wired poems. She refuses to see herself as homeless, but as a gypsy, making a home where she can--libraries and schools are among her favorite places to hide. As her situation gets increasingly desperate, readers long for Holly to find a bath and a hot meal and someone to care for her.

On Trial

The Trial - The baby son of Colonel and Mrs. Charles Lindbergh is kidnapped in nearby Hopewell. Bruno Richard Hauptmann is arrested and put on trial for the crime--right there in Katie's hometown--and the 12-year-old finds herself caught up in the case as assistant to her journalist uncle. Readers see the famous trial through Katie's eyes as she records the events in unrhymed poems that seem like newspaper reports.

Monster – “Monster" is what the prosecutor called 16-year-old Steve Harmon for his supposed role in the fatal shooting of a convenience-store owner. But was Steve really the lookout who gave the "all clear" to the murderer, or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time? To calm his nerves as he sits in the courtroom, aspiring filmmaker Steve chronicles the proceedings in movie script format.

Enjoy!

Problems

Drums Girls & Dangerous Pie - Thirteen-year-old Steven has a totally normal life: he plays drums in the All-Star Jazz band, has a crush on the hottest girl in the school, and is constantly annoyed by his five-year-old brother, Jeffrey. But when Jeffrey is diagnosed with leukemia, Steven's world is turned upside down. Salted with humor and peppered with devastating realities, this book is a heartwarming journey through a year in the life of a family in crisis.

One of those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies - In breezy poetic prose-style entries, 15-year-old Ruby Milliken describes her flight from Boston to California and her gradual adjustment to life with her estranged movie-star father following her mother's death. E-mails to her best friend, her boyfriend, and her mother ("in heaven") and outpourings of her innermost thoughts display her overwhelming unhappiness and feelings of isolation, loss, and grief

Ah, Life…

Dairy Queen - After spending her summer running the family farm and training the quarterback for her school's rival football team, sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself, not anticipating the reactions of those around her.

Don’t Call Me Ishmael - By the time ninth grade begins, Ishmael Leseur knows it won't be long before he deals with Barry Bagsley, the class bully. Ishmael's perfected the art of making himself virtually invisible. But all that changes when James Scobie joins the class. Unlike Ishmael, James has no sense of fear—he claims it was removed during an operation. Now nothing will stop James and Ishmael from taking on bullies, bugs, and Moby Dick, in the toughest, weirdest, most embarrassingly awful . . . and the best year of their lives.

Favorites

The Lightning Thief - Percy, expelled from six schools for being unable to control his temper, learns the truth from his mother that his father is the Greek god Poseidon, and is sent to Camp Half Blood where he is befriended by a satyr and the demigod daughter of Athena who join him in a journey to the Underworld to retrieve Zeus's lightning bolt and prevent a catastrophic war.

Stormbreaker - Rider's world is turned upside down when he discovers that his uncle has been murdered. The 14-year-old makes one discovery after another until he is sucked into his uncle's undercover world. The Special Operations Division of M16, his uncle's real employer, blackmails the teen into serving England. After two short weeks of training, Alex is equipped with several special toys like a Game Boy with unique cartridges that allow it to scan, fax, and emit smoke bombs. Alex's mission is to complete his uncle's last assignment .

New!

Day of Tears - Based upon actual historical characters Pierce Butler and his ex-wife Fanny Kemble, the story begins during The Weeping Time, the largest slave auction that was held in Georgia in 1859. That infamous event saw hundreds of families and marriages torn apart as slave owner and plantation master Pierce Butler sold hundreds of slaves to pay off his gambling debts including Emma, his most-valued slave and caretaker of his children--a decision that brings about unthinkable consequences.

Diamond Willow - Using diamond-shaped poems inspired by forms found in polished diamond willow sticks, Helen Frost tells the moving story of Willow and her family. Hidden messages within each diamond carry the reader further, into feelings Willow doesn’t reveal even to herself. In a remote area of Alaska, Willow helps her father with their sled dogs when she is not at school, all the while unaware that the animals surrounding her carry the spirits of dead ancestors and friends who care for her.